Anthony Atala: at the cutting edge of regenerative surgery.

摘要

There's a painting that Anthony Atala likes to show at the start of the public lectures he is often asked to give. It's of the first successful organ transplant, performed in Boston in 1954. In the foreground, a cluster of blue-gowned surgeons prepares a patient to receive the organ-a kidney-while in the back room, another team is harvesting the organ from a donor. "That was about 60 years ago, yet we are still dealing with a lot of the same challenges as many decades ago", says Atala. "Certainly there have been many advances, and many lives saved, but we have a major shortage of organs."